“Yeah, that’s what’s required to do what we want to do—lead archaeological digs. And I went from barely graduated high schooler to marine, to wounded vet, and finally to a whole lot of education—and it all started with what Ginny assigned me. Once I dived into it, I couldn’t deny that Jesus fulfilled every Messianic prophecy in the Jewish Bible. I became a believer, what’s called a Messianic Jew. And I fell in love.”
Wojciechowski affected a game-show host tone. “And that’s made you who you are today …”
“She got me hooked on historical texts and ancient civilizations. You see why it would be impossible for me to do anything to hurt the love of my life?”
“Why is it, then,” the detective said, “that your wife’s convinced you keep secrets?”
CHAPTER 34
Ur
“You must have a plan, Terah,” Ikuppi said.
“That depends on gender. A daughter I would present to the king straightaway.”
“We both know no danger lies there.”
Terah nodded miserably. “Should the gods curse us with a son, the three of us must flee.”
Ikuppi shook his head. “Flee the king?”
“I will not sacrifice my own flesh and blood to him.”
“Yet you yourself say a manchild would be accursed.”
“And so I should offer him up? Belessunu would never forgive me.”
Ikuppi appeared to measure his next comment and find himself unable to utter it.
“Speak!” Terah said. “Something troubles you.”
The man stood and paced. Finally he said, “When I delivered your message to King Nimrod this morning, he called in his stargazers. He asked whether if Belessunu bore a son, it would portend the end of his reign.”
“And?”
“They were unanimous that your son would not only depose him but would cost him his life. They said everything pointed to this as a decision of the gods. He railed that he too was a god but had not foreseen this. Now he wants to test the gods themselves!”
“What does that mean, Ikuppi?”
“He would trick them with a substitute king. The imposter would dress in the king’s robes, be assigned a queen, and live in the palace—even occupy the throne while Nimrod and his family go into hiding.”
“To what end?”
“That the gods would mistake the substitute for the real king, strike him dead, the peril to Nimrod would disappear, and your son would not have to be slain.”
“But knowing that,” Terah said, “what madman would agree to become the substitute king?”
“King Nimrod was hoping you would.”
“Ha! That’s insane!”
“There is a strange logic to it, Terah.”
“How can you say that, as my friend?”
“I’m not suggesting you consider such a thing,” Ikuppi said. “I’m just saying that Nimrod would view such a choice as sacrificial. You would give up your own life for the sake of your son. Otherwise, he will ask that you show your eternal loyalty to him by willingly offering your son to him to be eliminated.”
“You must help me, Ikuppi.”
“What can I do?”
“Help me kneel and then bow with me before my gods. And when we have prayed to all of them, help me outside to kneel before Utu, who rides high in the sky even now.”
“But are not all these the same gods Nimrod is plotting to trick?”
“We must expose to them his evil plan and beseech them with all our might for a daughter.”
CHAPTER 35
Mount Sinai Hospital
Manhattan
Ben strode ahead of Detective George Wojciechowski.
“Hold up, Berman!” the cop said. “Young gal named Jefferson is gonna take us to Recovery …”
“I know this place like my own home.”
“I bet you do,” Wojciechowski said. “But let her do her job.”
Kayla found them at the elevators where Ben had already pushed the call button three times. Twice he had tried to enter an empty car, only to have Wojciechowski insist he wait. “I know you’re a rock star here, but—”
“I don’t need my hand held,” Ben said.
“You don’t even have a visitor badge yet, but the way everybody’s pointin’, I guess they know you.”
Kayla introduced herself and took Ben’s bags, telling him she would get them to the room on Eleven West after she took him and the detective to Recovery. She handed them each a badge. Wojciechowski said, “I’ll use my own,” patting the gold shield on his belt.
Ben shoved his visitor badge into his shirt pocket.
“Uh, sorry, Dr. Berman,” Kayla said, “but you’ll need that to—”
“No, I won’t, because I’ve got you. You’ll get me anywhere I need to go.”
“Yes, sir, I will. And may I just say, on behalf of the medical center executive team, how grateful we—”
“Not now, Ms. Jefferson, please. Just get me to my wife.”
CHAPTER 36
Ur
Terah regretted his request of Ikuppi as soon as his friend helped situate him before his table of carved idols. If anything, he felt worse now than when his injuries and wounds were fresh. It was all he could do to remain on his fragile knees. And his idols emitted no more an aura of divinity now than they had the night before. They bore the look of his own handiwork—clever carving that produced a measure of beauty but that were, as Belessunu had said more than once, blind, deaf, and mute.
Regardless how Terah cried out to them, beseeching them to hear him, he felt nothing, sensed nothing. No truth or insight was impressed upon his heart. Did he lack faith? On the contrary! He believed with all his being. He had to. He was without options.
Perhaps his gods were silent because of Ikuppi’s unbelief. “Do you trust in the gods, my friend?”
“I always have.”
“But do you now?”
“I think I do.”
“That’s not good enough, Ikuppi. They will not hear the pleas of unbelievers!”
“Terah, I’m trying! You are my friend. I want what’s best for you and Belessunu.”
“Do not pray for her! She opposes my gods.”
“But it is she who is to deliver your child. Do we not want to pray she gives you a daughter?”
Terah settled onto his throbbing rear, causing him to yelp and roll to his side. “Take me outside, Ikuppi! We must pray to Utu!”
Merely getting there proved agonizing, and Ikuppi suggested they kneel near the horses in the shade of the overhang. “To pray to the sun?” Terah said. “Are you mad?”
“I’m just thinking of you, friend.”
“Get me out where I can face him in the sky and make him listen.”
“Let’s pray to his sister too,” Ikuppi said, guiding Terah into the open. “She is a mother. She will understand.”
“Oh, god of morality, truth, and justice,” Terah began, eyes nearly shut from the brightness in the sky, “see your servant’s plight and bestow mercy upon me! And to your twin, Inanna, queen of heaven, if the child Belessunu carries is a male, change it before it comes forth!”
Terah pitched forward on his face and wept bitterly. “No one hears me!”
“Terah, let me help you up,” Ikuppi said. “Someone approaches.”
CHAPTER 37
Parris Island
Despite that it was midnight when the bus disgorged the marine recruits, Ben Berman emerged into heat and humidity he had never experienced in New York City, even in the middle of the summer. His reflection in a bus window showed his long hair instantly curling, the back of his shirt puddled with sweat. He found it hard to breathe.
Ben knew he would be assigned a narrow bunk in a dorm or Quonset hut, but he actually welcomed that. He didn’t need comfort—simply somewhere to stretch out. He’d also been warned that boot camp days started before dawn, whenever that was down here, so he might get only a few hours’ sleep. He’d take whatever he could get after excitement had kept him awake th
e night before and the woman on the bus had cost him any rest on the trip.
Any hope he harbored that the lateness of the hour might spare him the fabled verbal hazing newcomers expected was dashed when a full contingent of drill sergeants met him not ten feet from the bus. He had been the first off, the other dozen following.
“Name, longhair?” a marine bellowed at him.
“Berman, sir,” Ben said, proud of himself for knowing how to address his superiors and wondering what kind of abuse the other guys—with much longer hair—might face.
“I can’t hear you, maggot!” the man said. “First and last name, age, and hometown!”
“Ben Berman, sir! Eighteen, Manhattan. Sir!”
“Kansas or New York, sweetheart?”
“New York, sir!”
“Drop and give me twenty, ladybug! Gentlemen, we have a preschooler from New York City who doesn’t know his own name!”
Ben dropped his bags and reeled off twenty perfect push-ups.
The marine ran his finger down the top page on his clipboard and stopped. “Try that name for me again, sister!”
“Benzion Berman, sir!”
“Those twenty didn’t take you long enough, Benzion! Give me twenty more!”
Ben shot through another twenty as the other recruits were screamed at and assigned their own push-ups for infractions as varied as being too tall, too skinny, too fat, speaking too softly, forgetting to add “sir” to the end of every sentence, and an endless list of other things none of them could have anticipated.
“What kinda name is Benzion, Berman?”
“First name, sir!”
“Twenty more, son, for knowin’ that’s not what I was askin’. You’re gonna be the first to visit our Jewish chaplain, ain’t you?”
Ben didn’t know how to respond, and his third set of twenty was not so easy.
“I can’t hear you, Berman!”
“Sir! Yes, sir!”
The recruits were to grab their bags and run, following a set of painted yellow footsteps to a processing center where they stripped and stood next each other, a thermometer popped in each mouth. They’d had one chance to throw away anything they’d brought that even looked like a weapon. One guy pleaded to keep a small jackknife he said was an heirloom from his grandfather.
“Your choice, pissant!” a drill sergeant screamed in his ear. “You have it on your person past this point, you will be arrested!” Shoulders sagging, the recruit dropped it into the trash.
One coughed and complained of asthma, which made him a target for abuse. Those not in Ben’s shape—which meant most—stood awkwardly, obviously embarrassed about their bodies.
Ben distracted himself by looking forward to a little sleep. Some of the guys looked panicky, and a heavyset kid appeared to fight tears. He was berated unmercifully and asked by several if he planned to start bawling, which resulted in just that. But to his credit, when they asked if he was going to run home to his mama, he shook his head and did whatever was asked.
After cursory physical exams and multiple shots to each arm and both backsides—followed immediately by more push-ups—one barber shaved all thirteen heads in less than two minutes. “Come in a hippie, go out a skinhead,” he said over and over.
The guys were issued boots, socks, underwear, undershirts, trousers, shirts, and caps. The three slowest to dress were made to drop for more push-ups, then sent outside to run.
Ben had read enough to know that this was all about stripping every would-be marine of his individuality, his identity, and making him part of a unit. He hadn’t expected it to make any more sense than that, assuming that—if anything—the institutionalism of the military might even be less logical than that of the Ivy League and its prep schools and universities. He wasn’t escaping bureaucratized lunacy; he was choosing the opposite of what his parents wished for him. So far so good.
With their personal belongings locked away for safekeeping (“You won’t be needing them here!”), the recruits were herded outside again for calisthenics. One fainted, was doused with water, and razzed unmercifully. One of the drill instructors crowed, “I don’t see one here likely to survive!” and made the entire group run for not responding, “Sir, yes, sir!”
Finally sent to their bunks in a Quonset hut, Ben could not believe how long it had taken to process—and humiliate them. It was already well past two in the morning, and sunrise this far south had to be at around six. If they were to be awakened before dawn, he was going to have to sleep fast.
Fat chance.
The welcoming committee found reasons to bellow instructions and reminders to the recruits even after they were in bed, hauling some out for more physical activity if they had violated rules they could not yet know. Ones who hid their faces in their pillows and even appeared to be crying were rousted out for more attention.
Ben was forced outside to run for going to bed without his boots on, but when he returned he was assigned two more sets of twenty push-ups because he went back to bed with them on. Illogic was all part of the milieu, and he was determined not to crack under it. But when he was finally in his bunk for good, fully dressed so he could hit the ground running at reveille, it was four in the morning.
He was in better shape mentally and physically than the rest of these guys and would survive this. Many had. But he had not expected his bunk, and the harassment, to transport him right back to his first trip away from home, at age nine, to a boarding school in Massachusetts.
That was going to be fun. No parents. Beautiful campus. Lots of guys to make friends with. Perfect for an only child, right? He’d been warmly welcomed, shown around the place, introduced to staff and teachers. He’d been helped storing his clothes and supplies, setting up his schedule, directed to the dining hall, and enjoyed the first dinner …
But when he’d finally gone to bed and began chatting with the guys near him, the announcement came. No talking after lights out. In the silent darkness, Ben had found himself awash in grief. He could only wonder why he had been sent away. Dad and Mom had talked this up for two years—the privilege, the advantages, the benefits to his future.
It had all looked and felt great, even when he’d been dropped off and they drove out of sight. Why then, the first time he had to just think, was he so homesick? So heartsick? Was he too young to be sent away for nine months out of the year? Nine months! And this would be his life until high school! The years loomed before him like eternity. Nothing could make it anything like what his parents had promised it would be and what it had at first seemed to be.
In the night, alone in bed, Ben felt abandoned. Unloved.
But marine boot camp should have been different. He was an adult now, wasn’t he? No surprises yet, not really. Maybe it had all started a little quicker than he’d expected, but he’d heard the stories. Sure, Jimmy had lied to him, bailed on him, which only showed what kind of a buddy he would have been anyway. Good riddance. They wouldn’t have necessarily been running or doing push-ups side by side anyway. It might have been good to know a friend was nearby, going through the same stuff he was, but it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference, would it?
The barracks were, finally, mercifully quiet for perhaps ten, maybe fifteen minutes before Ben felt himself fading. How much sleep could a guy get before predawn, anyway? It was already predawn if he thought about it. But Ben couldn’t think about it. Because all of a sudden he was that lonely nine-year-old again, sent to and abandoned at boarding school.
This was supposed to be different because he had chosen it. Enlisting was his idea. No way was he going to turn tail and admit defeat. He’d invested too much into this. Why, then, did he bury his own face in his pillow and have to fight with everything in him to keep from crying? Wuss!
And what seemed only ten minutes or so after he drifted off, drums badgered him awake. Drums! What happened to the famous bugle? All around him guys staggered out of bed and squinted at their watches. It was 4:25 a.m. Or as he would learn to sa
y, oh-four-hundred-twenty-five hours.
CHAPTER 38
Ur
The dot on the road in the distance could easily have been Belessunu and her servant girls. Terah dared not take the time to make sure. He couldn’t risk anyone, especially her, seeing him in such a state. He didn’t want even random sojourners—most of whom would know him from the king’s court—to be repulsed by his face, or worse, spread the word about him.
“Worry more about haste than whether I protest,” he told Ikuppi, who all but dragged him, moaning, back into the house. He collapsed into a chair and felt as if he could sleep for a week. “Bring me water and then see who is on the road.”
As he sipped and Ikuppi leaned out the window, Terah felt disgust for his idols. What a travesty that they would answer the prayers of a wicked king and ignore a devout supplicant.
“Belessunu should be home by now! I need her.”
“It’s a man driving a donkey-pulled cart,” Ikuppi said. “One of your men? Maybe he knows what’s become of her.”
“If it’s Wedum, he’ll know. You don’t think she’s abandoned me, do you, Ikuppi?”
“Because you do not worship the same gods?”
“Because I pray for a daughter.”
“She’s not doing the same?” Ikuppi said. “Surely she knows what the king would do—”
“She says her god would never give her a son only to snatch him away.”
“Terah, I cannot imagine Belessunu forsaking you after all these years, especially now when she’s about to deliver.”
The donkey skidded to a stop, and three raps came on the door. “Master, it is I,” Wedum said. “If that is the chariot of the king himself, I will withdraw, but otherwise you must come!”
Ikuppi opened the door. “The king is not here.”
Wedum rushed to Terah’s side. “The gods have smiled upon you, master! The midwife was with Mutuum and his wife and son when Belessunu came to visit. And now your wife herself is in the throes of childbirth.”
CHAPTER 39
Manhattan
Dead Sea Rising Page 11